How the network industry should view and understand “open”

[Commentary] How do we define open? It’s an imprecise term that’s being used to describe five areas of interest within networking. Open, as it is currently used, does not lend itself to the precise discussions needed to address specific networking problems. When evaluating solutions against these selection criteria, it’s important to be precise about which facets of “Open” are most critical.

1. Standards are meant for cross-industry collaboration on a set of technologies that have a high degree of interdependence in multi-vendor environments.
2. In practice, the most common meaning of openness is interoperable.
3. Open has also become shorthand for open source.
4. If interoperability is the measure of how well devices can interact, interchangeability measures the degree to which multiple items are directly substitutive.
5. Access is perhaps the least common definition for openness, but nevertheless should be considered. In this case, “Open” refers to access to information.

In using openness as a primary selection criterion, customers will ultimately be best served by adopting a more explicit and precise set of objectives, and should consider these five areas to determine the impact and importance of each attribute.

[Bushong is VP of Marketing at Plexxi]